Abstract Several spokesmen for the American ocean science community have come out in favor of providing technical assistance in the marine sciences to developing countries, in return for uncontrolled access for scientific research to coastal waters beyond narrow territorial limits. The writer of this article does not believe that technical assistance can be used as a quid pro quo to obtain unrestricted access to the proposed resource zone for scientific research. In the first place, developing countries, which have expressed a strong desire to control foreign‐conducted research in the proposed resource zone, are not likely to relinquish sovereign rights over parts of their claimed “national territory”; for a vague promise of technical assistance. Secondly, nations move through various stages of scientific and technological development: from complete dependence on foreign science and technology to the development of an independent scientific tradition. There is some historical evidence to suggest that when...